Sad stories about orchestras and institutions

 

            High culture isn´t immune to political and economic factors; their institutions don´t inhabit a preserved oasis of calm, sane ideas and illuminated sponsorship. I will tell you four stories, and to my mind all are rather sad.

            By now it´s common knowledge that Venezuela, incredible as it may seem in the disastrous country of Chávez, has been perfecting for three decades the best system in the world of children and youth orchestras, symbolized by the superb top of the pyramid, the Simón Bolívar led by Gustavo Dudamel. Mario Benzecry has long been an admirer of the Venezuelan model and he founded twenty years ago the Orquesta Juvenil Libertador San Martín; he had to wait all that time to finally obtain a national subsidy last year; a hurrah for his constancy. And an admirable girl called Valeria Atela, my disciple in musical criticism, founded fifteen years ago the Orquesta Escuela de Chascomús, now the best of several provincial projects. So the idea has taken hold. And the enterprising Andrea Merenzon has organized huge international meetings of children and juvenile orchestras in such places as Iguazú or our Luna Park.

            You might wonder, what´s sad about all this? On the contrary, although we are far from Venezuela´s prowess, these are good steps. But the main effort in our capital is now being undermined by the Macri government, and that´s what I want to stress.

            The Buenos Aires Program of Children and Youth Orchestras started about fifteen years ago, created by pianist Claudio Espector following the ideas of Maestro José Antonio Abreu, the soul of the Venezuelan project. The consistent work of Espector has been widely praised by the musical community, and last year the City Legislators declared him Distinguished Cultural Personality; the day before Christmas a massive mobilisation gave him total support in front of the Ministry of Education.

            Why? Because Soledad Acuña, Undersecretary of Educational Equality and overseer of the orchestral program, wants to fire him as coordinator of the project. Her reason: they have a different outlook (she doesn´t specify) on the social educational aspects, not solely the musical. But she is accused by parents and teachers of suspending concerts and workshops, reducing food and cutting the budget for   instrument repair and replacement.

            There is now an impressive number of these orchestras so markedly social : 16, with 1700 pupils between 6 and 18-years-old. Eduardo Ihidoype, who had been the Director of the Colón´s Instituto Superior de Arte during recent years, was named Director of the Operative Management of Music for Equality. There are also several string and tango orchestras as well as so-called Orchestras of Associated Management with foundations. According to the Ministry of Education, all this is in addition, not replacement, of the children and youth orchestras.

            But Espector is angry and he says "they want to break up the effort of 16 years of development";  he adds that the lives of many boys have been positively changed.  The basic principles must be preserved: musical formation, social inclusion, artistic development. Will they be? And why is this attack on the founder supported by the Minister of Education?

            Another sad story concerns the Orquesta Estable de la Radio y Televisión Pública Argentina, a  little-known organism that has existed for the last nine years but is now endangered. In Europe such orchestras have a long tradition and some of them are world-class, such as the Bavarian Radio Orchestra (which will visit us this year).  Veterans such as myself remember fondly the Orquesta de Radio del Estado doing splendid work in the Fifties and Sixties with first-rate foreign conductors, until the Illia Government suppressed it. Currently Radio Nacional has a small chamber orchestra of good standard.

            The OERTPA should have had enough budget and support to have quality seasons with classic repertoire, but it has been poorly treated and in recent months the conflict has come to a boil. It is a 50-player  orchestra with some players of distinction, such as the concertino Gabriel Pinette and the hornist Silvia Lanzón.  Tristán Bauer, who controls it, has decided to disregard the claims of the players, who point out the incongruity of being called "Estables" but having no normal recognized rights. Bauer has put them in the condition of an "eventual" orchestra with no set plans, just a step away from dissolving it. They deserve the solidarity of other orchestras and of musical criticism and I wish them well. Bauer is being shortsighted and unfair.

            My final two cases are of a different kind: private institutions that either have called it quits or are evaluating doing so. The Pilar Golf Concerts have been the best of the "Gran Buenos Aires", providing quality artists and programmes for the last decade to residents of the area; now, with the lowest of profiles and no announcement, the organizers have decided to close shop. I won´t be the only one that will regret it: the place is beautiful and the music was worthwhile.

            For twenty years Susana Santillán has sustained La Scala de San Telmo, offering hundreds of concerts and giving priority to the promotion of young talents. The hall is very small and that was always a problem, acknowledged by a parallel series, "La Scala fuera de La Scala", where bigger venues were host to established artists. Now she is pondering whether the results vouchsafe going on, discouraged by very poor attendance at the San Telmo house. I hope that she will persist, maybe changing some aspects of programming.

For Buenos Aires Herald

Operatic paradox: production crisis, glamorous new houses

            Readers of the Herald know that I disagree with the by now lengthy trend of conceptual operatic production, a plague that started about thirty years ago and has contaminated opera houses all over the world. I am deeply convinced that it is ruining the art of opera and provoking in many people a mass exodus from live opera. However, there´s a substantial number of opera lovers (generally under 50) that support this development and consider that it has renovated what they think would otherwise be a dying art. I strongly believe they are wrong and I will try to  express my reasons in this article.

            From its inception opera has found its essence in telling a story through the combined resources of instruments and voices, plus proper scenery, costuming and lighting. By "proper" I mean "adequate to the times that are evoked". And even in the remote times of the late seventeenth-century/early Baroque Camerata Fiorentina, the aim was to obtain as inclusive a work of art as possible. Greek mythology, not Late Italian Renaissance, was what inspired those pioneers, as vouchsafed by such early creators as Jacopo Peri ("Euridice", 1600) and Claudio Monteverdi, author of the first truly successful opera: "La favola d´Orfeo" (1607). However, of course they weren´t classic Greeks and their views of Arcadic Greece were those of the Florentine and Mantuan intelligentsia.

            As Baroque opera matured, favorite subjects of "opera seria" were those of historical Rome and Persia along with mythological Greece, whilst current history was neglected to avoid censure. But the eighteenth-century "opera buffa" -both in the Baroque and in the Classical period- came close to the people first with short "intermezzi" (Pergolesi´s "La Serva Padrona"), later with full-evening comedies (Paisiello´s very successful "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" from 1782 antecedes Rossini by several decades): opera catered both to popular and aristocratic tastes and audiences.

            And so it continued to be as the language of music evolved and became ever more complicated during the ninetenth-century: Wagner gave us Medieval life with "The Mastersingers" or a huge Tetralogy of mythical German times (the "Ring") whilst bringing chromaticism to the very limits ("Tristan and Isolde"); meanwhile Verdi brought to us Babylonia or Egypt but was censored when he wrote about relatively recent magnicide in"Un Ballo in Maschera". There was another more revealing case of censorship: "La Traviata" was a true revolution for it was about a courtesan of Verdi´s time; at the première the librettist had to transport the story to the early eighteenth-century and only later was he allowed to offer it as inspìred by Dumas Fils´ "The Lady of the Camelias".

            Late Romantics as Puccini gave us wildly different locales and periods: Paris in the 1840s ("La Boheme"), early 1900s Japan ("Madama Butterfly"), the Pope´s Secret Police in Napoleonic times ("Tosca"). And so did Richard Strauss (Greek "Elektra", eighteenth-century Vienna in "Der Rosenkavalier"). But Berg´s "Wozzeck" (1925) was stark contemporary drama (Büchner´s amazing original, from 1836, was fully relevant in Berg´s time) with twelve-tone music, and from then on, although there were skilled practitioners of older styles as Menotti, things changed forever.

            You may think that I´m giving you a potted history of opera, but I needed this to give valid examples. In WW II´s postwar times one singer-actress changed the stand-up-and-sing school: Maria Callas. But she didn´t do it alone: Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli were those that were essential in the enormous change which I fully back: Visconti in "La Traviata" and Zeffirelli in "Tosca" demonstrated with Callas that opera was important as drama, not just as a vehicle for singers.  Visconti´s "Traviata" showed the right way: an absolutely precise evocation of Paris in the 1840s down to the minutest detail, and within it an immensely moving love story: he gave us the mores of the times, and she offered the most heartbreaking interpretation within the purest singing. And so did Zeffirelli´s uncannily true "Tosca": Toscas usually come on stage majestically, but not Callas: she was what Puccini wanted, an anguished jealous woman trying to find her supposed rival.

            On the other extreme, Wieland Wagner  revolutionised the staging of his grandfather´s operas by abstract symbolic designs and perfect lighting. But Wieland died and his brother Wolfgang innovated in the wrong way: Patrice Chéreau´s "Ring" was the starting point of the current trend, with Wotan in smoking and Siegfried´s anvil a modern factory. "Concept" staging was born...and we never recovered.

            The culprit is today´s a-historic generations; they believe only the present matters and don´t realize a glaring truth: the present is this very instant and all the rest is the past: unless we understand this we dont have a future. The fascinating thing about opera is that we are submerged into different cultures: Pharaonic Egypt ("Aida"), Napoleonic-era Rome ("Tosca"), Renaissance Mantua ("Rigoletto"), Medieval Flanders ("Lohengrin") and an enormous etcetera.

             Why are young people impressed by meticulous evocations of Medieval times in TV such as "Game of Thrones" or by Tolkien´s world but reject the same principle applied to opera? It makes no sense, but producers and opera directors, unfortunately promoted by many colleagues of mine and audiences that want to seem progressive, do enormous cultural crimes. Cleopatra as Evita, Rigoletto in Las Vegas, our last dictatorship in the Ring, the Madonna in full frontal nakedness (Bieito´s version of "Pepita Jiménez")...there´s no end to monstrous distortion. This is not opera.

            Producers aren´t authors: they are interpreters of the libretto, as conductors are of the music. Now if a production accords with the libretto it is panned by critics and some audiences! This is a sick society. You can be innovative but faithful, and this is the essential point.

For Buenos Aires Herald

“Bloody daughter”, candid analysis of Martha Argerich

            "The Martha Argerich case"  might be an alternative title of "Bloody daughter", the documentary by Stéphanie Argerich programmed at the MALBA cinema for January and February Saturday nights. Indeed, her mother´s enigmatic personality, always so elusive and fascinating, needed this personal view, certainly interesting not only for music lovers but also for the public at large.

            Now in her early 70s, she holds a unique place in the world of piano interpretation. Child prodigy, and then prodigious adolescent, her concerts amazed the great European centers and as she came of age she recorded the first of many magnificent records for Deutsche Grammophon. She had all the qualities:  acute intelligence, lovely tone, a fantastic mechanism of seemingly inexhaustible possibilities and a sense of style which allowed her to adapt mercurially to authors as different as Chopin and Prokofiev.

            At the time (the Sixties) some very conservative critics felt she was too free and were disconcerted by her immense stamina and the electricity that emanated from her, but once and again she was capable of catching the essence of very simple and easy music quite as easily as the most virtuosic, and both the public and the reviewers soon adopted her. She was a force of nature.

            At that time she visited Buenos Aires in 1965 and I had the great pleasure of interviewing her; although she was shy and disliked talking about herself, she was pleasant and charming, and after an hour it seemed I had known her for years. She gave their due to her teachers (Scaramuzza, Gulda, Madeleine Lipatti) and in a very characteristic phrase she said that she played before older pianists (Stefan Askenase) but also of her own generation (Fou Ts´ong) because interpretations are always improved by the exchange of views with other pianists.

            Later, in June 1967, I had an informal chat over dinner with Argerich and her then husband, conductor Charles Dutoit, after a concert for the Prague Spring Festival, and she was completely relaxed. Others have complained of her boorish ways, and I suppose that her moods have varied widely, so I may have been lucky, but I can only report that her charisma is great.

            But let´s go back to Stéphanie Argerich. You may think that the rather startling title of the movie refers to the mother-daughter relationship, but when about half of the picture has elapsed you will learn that "bloody" was used as a curious tender epithet by Stéphanie´s father, pianist Stephen Kovacevich (Bishop Kovacevich in the early stages of his career), and there are several long sequences between them, including the rather harsh one about why he never recognised her.

            Stéphanie has two half-sisters: Annie Dutoit and Lyda Chen. The latter was the unplanned issue of a shared night between Martha and a Chinese musician. So you see that Martha´s private life was unstable and sometimes stormy. But this film is astonishing, for Stéphanie managed to convince her mother to expatiate freely on various matters (often not musical), vanquishing her notorious secretiveness and showing her indecisions frankly. And considering that her three daughters have had long periods of incommunication with their mother, it is rather wonderful to find them all together and feel that there´s real love among them all.

            Stéphanie evokes her infant years following her mother in tours, and vintage clips of Martha´s interpretations are moving for those spectators that admire her (as I do). Mind you, Martha has always had a deep insecurity and stress before a concert; once she is in front of the public it doesn´t show, and she plays with adamant firmness. It is interesting that this is vouchsafed by her longtime agent, who appears in some sequences.  And it explains that strange syndrome; after her youthful years, she no longer offered recitals nor did she record piano solo scores: she exclusively played concerti with orchestra or chamber music with friends. No other world class pianist has managed to keep a high-profile career without solo recitals! A great pity,  for her recitals were marvelous and her solo records are few.

            Talking about music Martha isn´t articulate, she even thinks that nothing useful can be said about it, that you just have to feel it; curious, because her interpretations have always been deeply thought out. She admits a tendency to fast tempi (and age hasn´t abated that trait) but keeps coherence at all speeds.  The film has some serious omissions: it is good that it concentrates on the mother-daughter relationships, but it should at least mention some of her great friendships, such as the De Raco-Lechner family, who live next door to her in Brussels. And it would be nice to see her talking with some of her musician friends who play with her (e.g., Nelson Freire, Misha Maisky, Gidon Kremer).

            The film is reasonably well made, and gives us an honest glimpse of the private Martha, who now looks her age. It is dated 2012, before the memorable encounter Barenboim-Argerich in Berlin.  Martha was seriousy mistreated by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic years ago in the last Argerich Festival, and it took some years to convince her to come back; but when she did last year, she played in Rosario and Paraná, not here. Now music lovers can look forward to appreciate that formidable combination next August at the Colón: two great Argentines will play together for the first time here.

For Buenos Aires Herald

The Colón: an evaluation of its current condition

 

            The Colón Theatre has been for 106 years the great center in Buenos Aires for opera, ballet and concert life. During that long period it has had its share of polemics: a partial shutdown in 1957 due to a labor conflict; a total closure of four years (late 2006 to May 2010) for ample restoration work whose results are still being discussed. But even in those years there were at least two seasons at the Coliseo (2007, 2009) with the Colón forces, and in 2008, a few concerts and some chamber opera elsewhere.

            After heavy newspaper flak Mauricio Macri decided that the controversial Master Plan had to somehow reach its end, the reinauguration of the theatre; and with a complex support from two other organisms the long-awaited day arrived: May 25, 2010. It was  a political necessity, for in fact the works were supposed to finish in 2008. For the general public it was a great success, for the theatre looked well (though some specialists insist that the restoration won´t last) and there was real hunger to have a fully functioning Colón. And apparently it was so, at least in opera and concerts (there was trouble with the ballet due to the lack of an adequate flooring and half the season was cancelled).

            But alas, neither many members of the audiences nor superficial observers  that should have known better realised that there were terrible flaws in other aspects. First, the idea was sold that the theater´s restoration was finished: false. It was left incomplete in vital aspects and people weren´t told that most of the production was done elsewhere at a space in Belgrano called La Nube, much smaller than the original stage design halls at the Colón now used for rehearsals.

             Even now, when some cellars below the Plaza Vaticano have been recovered for certain production aspects, the integration of the Colón as it was before is far from complete, and a big block in the main building remains unused and unreformed. And people don´t seem to appreciate the cultural disaster symbolised by the unavailability of the Colón Library, whose invaluable materials remain in containers since 2006.

            But the human side is even worse. On Macri´s instructions (based on a wrong imitation of Milan´s La Scala "innovations"), the Colón´s Director Pedro Pablo García Caffi transferred 400 people partly to hospitals and partly to a limbo where they would be evaluated by an obscure office which never did the job...all to  reach a staff level of 900, disrupting careers and eliminating wholesale such necessary sections as Administration; surreal but sadly true. So we now have this ridiculous situation: about 900 are staff, but the total number is still about 1300...for most of those jobs were indispensable and are covered by people from outside the theatre ("tercerization"); and the theatre is more costly than it used to be.

            There were also strikes and performances that were cancelled with the audience inside the theatre, and in this the Colón workers were surely wrong although they had great and true grievances; followed a long series of law suits, most of them favorable to labor, and they will continue during 2014.

            Some things were ameliorated after 2010: although still far from ideal, the integration of the orchestras, the choir and the ballet allowed a lot of necessary young blood to show their capacity, even if not always done following orthodox competitions. Much remains to be done, however, in the structuring of the workshops, hindered by the lack of facilities mentioned above.

            One factor has caused a lot of protestations from the music lovers: the very high prices in a state-funded theatre. True, operatic prizing is high also in Europe, but their standard of living triples or quadruples ours. The lack of special discount for students or pensioners is also bothersome.

            On the purely artistic side veteran Colón goers agree that we are operatically very far from the halcyon years of either the Renán or the Valenti Ferro seasons. Gross mistakes such as the Colón-Ring are very much in the debit side.  Few first-rate singers have visited us. On the credit side, we´ve had some interesting premières (even too many in 2012). The ballet seasons still have a poor repertoire but the quality of dancing has picked up a good deal.

            Concerts: the "reflected glory" from many splendid concerts by private institutions (Mozarteum, Nuova Harmonia, Festivales)  have given us great Colón nights, but the theatre has also offered admirable soloists in 2012 such as András Schiff, or first-rate orchestras in 2013 (Simón Bolívar, Israel Philharmonic). Plus the Scala Verdi performances. And the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, under the charismatic Enrique Arturo Diemecke, has had successful seasons. I also commend the evenings of difficult but valuable Twentieth century composers (Varèse, Xenakis, Nono). For 2014 we have the extraordinary conjunction of Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim.

            A moot point on which I have strong views with which you may not agree: I find it wrong policy to offer popular music at the Colón. This is a classical music theatre of famous acoustics; it is demeaned by amplification.  It is no place for Las Elegidas or for Charly García. And I also feel that their artistic quality is simply not comparable to any of the above. But Macri and Minister Lombardi seem to feel it´s good politics...

For Buenos Aires Herald

The Colón and the Argentino close their seasons with ballet evergreens

            In the final days of the year  it is customary in many cities of the Northern Hemisphere to offer either concerts connected with Christmas and New Year´s Eve or a  ballet suitable for kids, particularly Tchaikovsky´s "The Nutcracker".  In recent decades this has also been the case for our city, and that famous ballet has often been on stage.

            Not this year, however: Iñaki Urlezaga had presented it in 2011 and 2012 at the Ópera, but there wasn´t a third series on this season; the Colón opted in 2013 to end its season with another famous Tchaikovsky score, "Swan Lake", but it will give at the end of 2014 a new choreography of "The Nutcracker". Finally, the Argentino had announced a "Nutcracker" but for some reason they switched to "La Sylphide".

            This year marks the centenary of the first "Swan Lake" seen here: Karsavina and Nijinsky with Diaghilev´s Ballets Russes. It took a whole half century to have a choreography of that famous ballet in the Colón repertoire: Jack Carter´s proved positive and stayed for several seasons. And among others there were the visits of two icons of Russian ballet: Moscow´s Bolshoi (1986) and Leningrad´s Kirov (1996), now known as Saint Petersburg´s Mariinski. I welcome now the import of Peter Wright´s choreography, originally premièred in 1981 for the Birmingham Royal Ballet; some fragments are by Galina Samsova. This Colón revival was prepared by Desmond Kelly and Dennis Bonner and I found it quite satisfactory.

            A bit of history. Originally the music was created between 1875 and 1876, and premièred the following year at the Bolshoi with a mediocre choreography by Julius Reisinger; it was a fiasco!  Many years later, in 1889, the composer met at Saint Petersburg the famous Marius Petipa; this would lead to the premières of "Sleeping Beauty" (1890) and eventually also "The Nutcracker". On November 6, 1893, the composer died. On March 11 of the following year, the Mariinski gave a night of fragments of Tchaikovsky´s operas and the première of choreographer Lev Ivanov´s Second Act of "Swan Lake"; it was a success and Petipa decided to present the whole ballet; and so he did on January 27, inaugurating the great career of this seminal ballet.

            Acts One and Three are at the Court of Prince Siegfried and were mostly choreographed by Petipa; acts Two and Four were in the skilled and poetic hands of Ivanov. So the divertissements were mostly Petipa´s, but the image that stays with us was Ivanov´s : a group of women dancers  in beautiful geometrical movement, plus the ethereal Odette with Siegfried. The villain of the piece is the magician Von Rothbart, who holds the group under his malefice; they are women in the night hours but swans from dawn to dusk. And a further villain for Act 3: Von Rothbart´s daughter appears as Odile the black swan with the appearance of Odile, and she seduces the Prince. Wright, as the  revisor of both Petipa and Ivanov, mostly sticks to tradition and to Tchaikovsky´s preference for the tragic ending instead of the triumphant one preferred by the Mariinski authorities at that time. 

            The Colón has bought the whole Birmingham production, so we have the stage and costume designs by Philip Prowse and the lighting by Peter Teigen. The total effect is somber and dramatic, only lightened in the divertissements. Tasteful in the costumes and in the lighting, this "Swan" was worthwhile, and it respects the idea of one ballerina dancing both facets, Odette and Odile. 

            I chose the performance of December 20, for in it there was the sole debut of the nine presentations: Japanese dancer Nao Sakuma from the Birmingham Ballet (she also did the performance of December 22); Carla Vincelli  danced in several nights. Although Sakuma failed to give malignity to Odile, she is an accomplished artist and has the Ivanov style instilled by Wright. She was well partnered by Juan Pablo Ledo, who has a sense of the dramatic. The famous quartet of swans went very well, and I especially liked the tall, lithe Larisa Hominal and Manuela Rodríguez Echenique as two leading swans. The regional dances (Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Neapolitan) were no more than correct. Wright´s conception of Von Rothbart is rather dull and conventional, giving little of interest to the interpreter, in this case Sebastián Scolari. Maximiliano Iglesias was an agile Benno, friend of the Prince. But perhaps the best thing was the discipline and beauty of the assembled swans, in very pure tradition.

            The Buenos Aires Philharmonic played rather well under Hadrián Ávila Arzuza, a solid but unimaginative interpreter.  By the way, this "Sleeping Beauty" will have further performances in March.

            La Plata saw in 2003 the Mario Galizzi choreography based on Bournonville of "La Sylphide" and this was revived now by Sabrina Streiff. The Colón decades ago presented Pierre Lacotte´s reconstruction of the original Paris première with choreography by Filippo Taglioni and music by Jean-Marie Schneitzhoeffer; at the time it was quite a success. But I personally prefer the Bournonville Danish tradition, for that choreography remains in the Copenhagen repertoire since its 1836 première and I find it a splendid example of Bournonville´s talent for fast small graceful steps. It also has better music, by Hermann Lovenskjold.

            This story of ill-fated love between the "sylphide", spirit of air, and James, a Scot, is typically Romantic, and the villain is Magda, a dark witch. There are charming Scottish dances along with narrative fragments in the two acts. It was unfair to see a sparse audience for a fine show. The 2003 production Juan Carlos Greco (stage designs) and Eduardo Caldirola (costumes) works very well. The 70 minutes flowed agreeably with Federico Víctor Sardella at the helm of the Argentino´s Orchestra.

             Fine principals (Elizabeth Antúnez and Esteban Schenone), a properly disagreeable travestied witch (Christian Pérez), nice dancing from Stefania Vallone and Miguel Ángel Klug and a corps de ballet that gave us a nice contrast between the assembled sylphs and the folk-colored dances of the village people.

For Buenos Aires Herald

Sad travesty at the Colón: Verdi´s “Ballo” destroyed

            Giuseppe Verdi often had trouble with the Austrian censure over some of the libretti of his operas, which abounded in conflicts with the Establishment, but surely the worst case is "Un ballo in maschera", for it deals with magnicide. And this was clearly unpalatable, for the future Italy in 1859 was still under the aegis of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the North, the Papal States around Rome and the Bourbons in Naples, though Garibaldi was in the horizon. The subject was the murder of Gustavus III of Sweden in 1792 by the Count of Anckarström.

            Curiously enough, it came from a drama by Eugène Scribe, most prolific French librettist, and Auber wrote a successful opera on it ("Gustave III, ou Le Bal Masqué").  So did Saverio Mercadante (with less success).   Verdi chose his librettist badly, for Bonaventura Somma´s text is famous for its irrelevancies, poorly contrived situations and unfortunate phrases. But it is also true that both writer and musician were sick and tired of pressures by the censors, and the opera was "in progress" –so to speak-  between 1857 and 1859.

             Three different titles before the definitive one: "Gustavo III", "Una vendetta in domino" and "Adelia degli Adinari". And three varied places and times: Sweden 1792, Florence in Guelph times, and Colonial Boston; the latter became the one finally accepted by  Rome´s Apollo Theatre. The  King of Naples released Verdi from his contract (he had been threatened with jail) but with the obligation of offering another opera the following year  (it was "Simone Boccanegra" in its original version, though it had been premièred at Venice in 1857).

            The grumblings of poet and musician against the censors have been preserved for posterity; but perhaps the saddest thing was that Verdi abandoned, for this flawed "Ballo", a "King Lear" that could have been marvelous. However, his genius prevails, and a lot in the opera is great music. The sense of drama is there in Renato´s aria "Eri tu" or in Amelia´s two arias, the melodic flow of the duet between soprano and tenor is irresistible, some orchestral passages are quite advanced in its harmony (almost Expressionistic ), the conspirators´ sarcasm at the end of Act 2 is a "trouvaille", etc. And the page Oscar´s funny music, quite unaware of the tragedy around him, provides an effective contrast.  So "Ballo" has become a repertoire opera for great singers.

            It has had ups and downs at the Colón, especially when the Malvinas War precluded the visit of a starry cast led by Pavarotti, but there were moments to be treasured, such as Cornell MacNeil´s fantastic Renato (1960, 1965).  And twice our city saw the Swedish version that Verdi couldn´t première: 1959 (the Amphitheatre, Parque Centenario) and 1970 (Colón, staged by Franco Enriquez).

             I find it so much better than the forced Boston locale, but it needs some retouching: it isn´t enough to simply call Gustavo the Boston Riccardo; Count Anckarström is (based on true events) the murderer, not Renato; the witch Ulrica is Madame Arvidson, hand-reader; the conspirators aren´t the ridiculous Tom and Sam, but Counts Horn and Ribbing; even the sailor Silvano is Cristiano in the Swedish version; only Amelia and Oscar retain their names.

            Alex Ollé is responsible for the transformation of "Ballo" into a dystopic Orwellian ("1984") view with Nazi-Fascist heavy sets (Alfons Flores), ugly and drab uniforms with numbers (Lluc Castells), absurd and distracting videos (Emmanuel Carlier) and lighting (Urs Schönebaum) that goes along with the producer´s ideas. Ollé also seems Daltonic for there are grotesque changes in the colors the text mentions, and he doesn´t solve crucial moments (Amelia´s veil isn´t dropped accidentally but in a ridiculous gesture she does it apparently on purpose). Masks for everyone, uncomfortable and silly;  at the end the conspirators kill with gas all the courtisans (who look like bureaucrats dancing robotically); nothing looks Swedish (it was a farce to call it the Swedish version). And a big etc.

            You may remember that I mentioned this production when I wrote about the Sydney Opera in March; it will also go to Oslo and Bruxelles. A flabbergasting thing is that Ollé´s  "Ballo" won  the Australian best production award...

            On to the good things: splendid conducting by Ira Levin, excellent choral work (Miguel Martínez). Two good (not outstanding) casts.  Gustavo: nice debut of Albanian tenor Giuseppe Gipali, firm and with all the notes, though with little personality; the Argentine Marcelo Puente quite communicative and vocally adequate. Amelia: Virginia Tola in good form, very dramatic though with too much vibrato; debut of Georgian soprano Iano Tamar, with fine floated notes but weak in the low range. Our Fabián Veloz showed his fine lyric baritone as Anckarström; Douglas Hahn (Brazilian) sounded overparted and un-Verdian.

            Oscar for Ollé isn´t a trouser role but a woman! Well sung by the Swedish Sussana Andersson (at least she is Swedish...) though Ollé riddles the part with unforeseen familiarities, and we see a very tipsy Oscar at the Ball; Marisú Pavón was too vulgar and her singing barely coped. Ulrica: Elisabetta Fiorillo was a wrong import (debut), the voice broken and vibratoed; Alejandra Malvino sang cleanly though without mystery. Fine conspirators: Lucas Debevec Meyer and Fernando Radó (first cast) and Emiliano Bulacios and Debevec Mayer (second). Good Cristianos (Leonardo Estévez, Fernando Grassi).

            On the first night the producing team was roundly booed; serves them right.

For Buenos Aires Herald

An opera (?) by Tauriello: a study of grotesque

            Antonio Tauriello had a long life (1931-81) divided into a brilliant period until he was about 55 years-old and a sad one in his last 25 due to a neurological disorder that limited drastically his musical activity. During the good years he was one of our best composers, conductors and pianists. He had important international presence, especially when he was in charge of opera at the New York Juilliard School and for a long period assistant conductor of the Chicago Opera. At the Colón he was both an operatic and a concert conductor. He was also a notable pianist of contemporary music. As a composer his production was small but valuable.

            I had two connections with him and both show the amplitude of his musicianship. About 40 years ago my colleague Julio Palacio and I were at the helm of a short-lived midnight TV programme at Canal 7 offering contemporary music; one of those programmes was memorable: Tauriello and Gerardo Gandini, with the assistance of master percussionist Antonio Yepes and another excellent percussionist, played the seminal Bartók Sonata for two pianos and percussion; my colleague and I presented and were page-turners.  Then, in 1973, I was in charge of programming at the Buenos Aires Philharmonic; Bruno Martinotti fell ill and Tauriello took over at short notice; the great cellist Leonard Rose effusively congratulated him for his support in Dvorák´s Concerto.

            I wasn´t alone in deeply regretting his health problem for no other artist was so complete at the time. His personality was special: he looked like a sanguine, mustachioed Italian, but his music making was subtle and intelligent, and so were his compositions. As a composer, he never had a wide following, perhaps because he created sparsely and after an initial Symphonic Overture (tonal) he soon wrote advanced

music, showing the solidity of his studies with Alberto Ginastera. He had a deep knowledge of twelve-tone technique and also soon acquired the refinements of the new trend of sound-based composition and  of electroacoustic music. I mention his orchestral Impromptus and "Culebra de nubes II" as significant works.

            "Las guerras picrocholinas" is a curious score of 1974 that wasn´t premièred during his life. Although it was presented as part of the Tercer Ciclo Iberoamericano de Ópera Contemporánea, I don´t think it´s an opera; its 53 minutes are rather made up of incidental music (vocal and instrumental) and a long acted text based on François Rabelais´ "Pantagruel". It was a world première edited by Melos; the French text adapted by Jacques Nichet and Bernard Faivre was translated into Spanish; the hand programme doesn´t specify the translator, nor is it quite clear that Tauriello wrote the piece to the French text.

            Rabelais lived between circa 1494 and 1553 and his combined masterpiece is the four books of "Gargantua" and "Pantagruel", based on giants proceeding from anonymous Lyon chapbooks. These fantastic narratives, completely irreverent, are Renaissance manifestations of wild creativity both in language and content, hard to read both in French and in the English translation published by Britannica Great Books. The adjective "Rabelaisian" has come to mean  gusto for life of a Falstaffian dimension, where scatological expressions are liberally spread and food and drink are as much of the essence as sex and philosophical musings.

            The text of Tauriello´s concoction is based on chapters 25 to 51 (skipping some) of Book I telling the story of the war between the cake-bakers of Lerné and those of Gargantua´s country.  It is of course a ridiculous war, in which the principal characters are Picrochole (King of Lerné), Grangousier (King of Gargantua´s country), a tremendous priest with parallels to Friar Tuck of Robin Hood fame, and in a late appearance, Gargantua. Finally, the giant and his troops win. The story is told in nine fast tableaux.

            The production was presented at the Sala Guastavino of the Centro Nacional de la Música for three performances; I saw the last one and the place was packed. On the left, the 15-member Ensamble de música contemporánea del DAMus (IUNA) led by Santiago Santero and Natalia Salinas; on the right the six-member Ensamble vocal prepared by Juan Peltzer; in the middle the  nine actors and a big table; in the stairs the twelve acrobats and dancers. The General and artistic coordinator was the composer Juan Ortiz de Zárate supervised by Rubén Verna; the producer was Diego Ernesto Rodríguez; choreography by Diego Ivancic; stage design by Gabriela Piepoch; costumes by Alejandra Soto; lighting by Belén Chardón and Rodrigo Alvarado.

            I don´t understand why Tauriello, eminent opera specialist, was so far from an opera in his only attempt at staging a story; his music is subtle, very avantgarde, refined: quite the opposite of the story, grossly acted and yelled by the actors who often overwhelmed the music, which includes a Janequin quote. At the end a thought struck me: could a suite with only the music be extracted from this failed experiment? For I would like to hear it again but not in this context; mind you, I¨m not attacking Rabelais but what I saw.  And I´m sorry that Tauriello fell so short of a real opera  and chose wrong, I think he could do it and we were left without what could have been one of the few Argentine contemporary operas of value. The music was well played and sung, however.

For Buenos Aires Herald

A change of guard at Nuova Harmonia

            The Teatro Coliseo is a special case, for it is the only one owned by the State of Italy out of that country. It is in fact the second Coliseo in the same place, and was inaugurated on different architectural lines during 1961 with symphonic concerts led by Nino Sanzogno. The first Coliseo was basically an opera theatre; the second instead has been fundamentally a concert auditorium, with its big capacity of about 2.000 seats. Not only classical concerts, also quality popular. And many seasons of Les Luthiers, as well as "Rugantino" (Manfredi, Vanoni and Fabrizi) and Gassman.

            It was used very sparsely for chamber opera without pit (Vivaldi, Pergolesi), but in 2007 and 2009, as a result of the Colón´s search for an alternative during closure, the people at the Coliseo remembered that the original pit of the first Coliseo still was extant and could be used with some retouching; and indeed it was, witness no less than Strauss´ "Elektra", proof of a 100-player pit.

            As the years went by, there was a growing acknowledgment from the Italian community both here and in Italy that the Coliseo was a natural place for a classical music cycle of international quality, to compensate the underuse of the theatre and to have a proper balance in the city´s offer in that field. It was about 30 years ago.

            The Coliseo had provided an alternative to the Colón and facilitated things by its mere availability, even if its rather dry acoustics wasn´t to all tastes (dry but clean, not boxed in). And now it would have its own cycle, Harmonia. Well-funded, it presented traditionally-oriented concerts of high level. Its President from the start was Dino Rawa-Jasinski, who proved dynamic and efficacious in the hard logistics of providing a cycle with minimal hitches. 

            In a few years Harmonia was solidly installed, bringing over outstanding artists in instrumental, chamber and symphonic music. But the crisis of 2002 proved too much for its financial structure based on local sponsoring, and the Italian Government came to the rescue providing most of the money and renaming the institution Nuova Harmonia. Rawa remained stalwartly at the helm, and so it was until this year. 2002-4 were basically Italian, and then Rawa (as he had done before) brought the musical association to what I feel is only sane and logical, a cosmopolitanism that gave us the best from many European countries. Though always with Italian representation.  

            And so it was until late this year, when I was invited to the traditional end-of-year lunch in which Rawa chatted with local critics and unveiled the plans for the next season. Only this time it wasn´t Rawa, but two young and beautiful ladies that will lead Nuova Harmonia from now on. The long and prestigious Rawa  cycle was over.       

            The two ladies are called Marta Pires (of Portuguese origin) and Elisabetta Riva, current leaders of the Fundación Cultural Coliseum, which has controlled the Coliseo during the Rawa years.  I had an excellent conversation with them, and was assured that, though they will bring more Italian numbers, they will do so  well balanced with the artists from other countries.

             Meanwhile, 2014 will be a transition season, with 70% planned by Rawa and 30% by Pires and Riva. I do hope for a more adventurous view of programming in 2015, the only defect during the Rawa era being that he played too safe. Some opera and ballet might be present. (The Coliseo has in recent years presented, outside the Rawa cycle and in association with other organizers, several ballet galas).

            As in former years, seven concerts will take place at the Coliseo and three at the Colón. Coliseo: the splendid duo of Boris Belkin (violin) and  Michele Campanella will give on April 24 Mozart, Schubert and Franck. May 5: L´Arte del Mondo Orchestra (German in spite of its title) will be led by Werner Ehrhardt with violinist Daniel Hope in Mozart (Symphony Nº 29 and First Violin Concerto), Mendelssohn (the early Concerto for violin and strings) and Johann Christian Bach (the rarely heard Double Concerto).

            The Stradivarius Sextet plus Argentine pianist Eduardo Hubert (of Argerich Festivals fame) on May 22 have programmed Brahms´ marvelous First Sextet and works by Hubert and Bacalov. Then, a curious concert of arrangements on June 10 by Concerto Pianoforti, a group of three Italian pianists (there´s almost no repertoire for three pianos): transcriptions of the suite from Shostakovich´s "Moskva, Chernomushki", an operetta; of the 1919 suite from Stravinsky´s "The Firebird"; of Debussy´s "La Mer"; and of fragments from the Offenbach-Rosenthal ballet "Gaîté Parisienne". Sole piece originally for three pianos: Boccadoro´s "Vaalbara".

            The Camerata (or is it Cappella?; both appellations are present in the information) Istropolitana will be back on August 14 playing Janácek, Vivaldi, Sammartini, Torelli, Donizetti and Shostakovich.  The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra led by James Gaffigan will be heard on September 12 with Renaud Capuçon in Mendelssohn´s Violin Concerto, plus Weber´s "Oberon" Overture and the beautiful Dvorák Sixth Symphony (good choice). October 8: Swiss Piano Trio (Beethoven, Wettstein and Dvorák).

            At the Colón. September 29: Bruno Walter Symphony (Jack Martin Handler) with Stefan Stroissnig in Beethoven´s "Emperor" Concerto. October 20: Moscow Soloists (Yuri Bashmet) in Mozart, Schubert, Bruch and Schubert-Mahler ("Death and the Maiden"). November 8: Beijing Symphony (Tau Lihua) with Chinese music and Prokofiev (a suite from "Romeo and Juliet").

For Buenos Aires Herald

Ballet, opera and concert in a varied menu

            In the final weeks of the season there are still some interesting things going on. A programme of Mauricio Wainrot choreographies by the Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín, an independent opera production tackling Donizetti´s bel canto masterpiece "Anna Bolena"  and an unexpected but welcome chamber recital by soprano María Bayo all had their points.

            Wainrot , along with Oscar Aráiz, are our veteran choreographers of important international careers and both have been at the helm of the Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín, certainly our best group of that kind.  Although the BC has had ups and downs in their already long existence, they are currently in good shape, as witnessed by their  Wainrot double bill. He has been their Director for quite a while and his tenure should be considered positive although not without faults.

            The thirty dancers are listed alphabetically, no one has a special soloist category. It is worthwhile noting that they have teachers not only of Contemporary Technique but also of Classic Technique,  stressing the Neo-Classic trend of the BC.  It is in fact Wainrot´s style, modern but not experimental and far from the Expressionist leanings of such icons as Margaret Graham, José Limón or Pina Bausch. I find in Wainrot  a love for equilibrium and, in a way, what might be termed "classical modern"; an easy command of groupings; good taste.

            The session included "Desde lejos" ("From far away"), a half-hour piece on minimalist music by Wim Mertens created by Wainrot back in 1992 for the Ballet Royal de Wallonie and premièred here by Julio Bocca and his Ballet Argentino in 1998. And in what is apparently a world première, "La canción de la Tierra" ("Das Lied von der Erde", "Song of the Earth"), the marvelous hour-long song cycle by Gustav Mahler on old Chinese poems (translated of course in German).

            I believe Wainrot is more comfortable with abstract ballets, and "Desde lejos" is a good example; Mertens´ music is more expressive and melodic (and more varied) than most minimalist pieces, and with its strong rhythmic basis it provides a firm background to a fluid choreography of elegant steps featuring solos, duets, trios and ensembles. On the Thursday matinée I attended we had the first cast (he always works with two casts); the twelve dancers were very accomplished, although the women had better physiques. Pleasant stage design and costumes by Carlos Gallardo and well-conceived lighting by José Luis Fiorruccio.

            I have deep love for "Das Lied von der Erde" and believe it needs no choreography. Three of the songs are very Expressionistic in their music and I didn´t see their meaning reflected in the movements; the only light one, "About Youth", was quite nice. The enormous last song, "Der Abschied" ("The farewell") belongs to the metaphysical word of the Ninth Symphony´s last movement; the eight dancers were convincing, especially Sol Rourich and Benjamín Parada, and Wainrot´s best ideas were seen here, but for me he didn´t express the ineffable final "Ewig...ewig"  ("Eternal...Eternal"). Graciela Galán opted for ochre tones in her stage and costume designs; the lighting by Jorge Pastorino was suggestive; and the video by the Estudio Silvia Rivas brought Chinese ambience. The wonderful recording helped (Christa Ludwig, René Kollo and Hedrbert Von Karajan).

            I will be brief about "Anna Bolena". I have seen the opera in our city twice with orchestra, at the Colón with a splendid cast in 1970 (Suliotis, G.Raimondi, Cossotto, Vincò) and some years back with Adelaida Negri. It is Donizetti at its very best, and I treasure the theatre recording with Callas and Simionato. Of course, it´s a tall order to compete with such memories. This "Anna Bolena" was modest, piano-accompanied, in a small theatre rarely used (Luz y Fuerza).

            It started appallingly late (no explanation). César Tello was wholly responsible for the artistic side (piano, musical and stage direction); long acquainted with the genre, he gave us a totally traditional stage view, too melodramatic and repetitive, and his piano playing was quite fallible, but the phrasing indicated to the singers was generally right. The best of the cast was tenor Cristian Carrero, who has a true timbre and all the notes. Luciano Straguzzi was adequate as Henry VIII. The women were green; Maria Vkallasova has a nasal sound and a heavy appearance , but also ample power and some dramatic sense. Agnes Pelé was intense but often uncontrolled as Giovanna, and Valeria Mangano was poor as Smeton. Javier Martínez sounded well as Lord Rochefort and Alfredo Davies was in the picture as Hervey. The Coro Asociación Clásica del Sur was very amateurish .

            María Bayo was quite a success here back in 1992 (Susanna in "The Marriage of Figaro") and 1996 ("Doña Francisquita"). Now she was back in a very agreeable recital cunningly programmed for her 2013 vocal condition (some vibrato en long notes, highs rather incisive), at the Usina del Arte. Although she gesticulates too much, her personality is charming and she sings with aplomb and sensibility.

             She avoided drama and opted for pleasant, melodic songs: a beautiful selection of six pieces by Bizet (good French), and the rest all-Spanish: three of the "Canciones xacobeas" (that is, from Santiago de Compostela) by Antón García Abril, recent octogenarian; "Five pieces on poems by Juana Ibarbourou" by the very Cuban Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963), and that small masterpiece, Turina´s "Poema en forma de canciones" (poems by Ramón de Campoamor). Plus three irresistible encores from zarzuelas. And with the  splendid accompaniments of Rubén Fernández Aguirre, always accurate and collaborative.

For Buenos Aires Herald

Nono´s “Prometeo”, extreme 1980s avant-garde

             The three most representative Italian composers of the avant-garde in the period 1930-90 were Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-75), Luciano Berio (1925-2003) and Luigi Nono (1924-90). The first of them is by far the best known here, although he has been neglected recently, but in the field of opera our city has seen such important works as "Il Prigioniero", "Volo di Notte" and "Job". From Berio we heard his important Symphony with the Swingle Singers, but not his operas (Gerardo Gandini wanted to première "Un Re in ascolto", he wasn´t allowed to do it by Kive Staiff, who thought it too risky back in 1998). Nono has been very little interpreted here, and when he came to impart lectures to the Instituto Di Tella four decades ago he spoke mostly about Communism. In Europe, however, he was an essential figure.

            Married to Nuria Schönberg (daughter of Arnold, father of twelve-tone music), Nono started in the serial line of his father-in-law though in the Webernian pointillist way, but later veered to electronic music and eventually to a late style of radical experimentalism in the possibilities of the manipulation of sound. And this, plus a dense dialectic net based on the thoughts of philosopher Massimo Cacciari (born 1944) and a panoply of varied texts in three languages, are at the base of "Prometeo (Tragedia dell´ascolto)", written in 1984-5. Colón Contemporáneo assumed the hard  challenge of presenting the American première  (two performances) and did a remarkably good job.

            I differ however in two aspects: a) both the hand programme and various articles give its duration as 2 hs 30´ , but it lasted 2 hs. Why? Moot point. b) They call it an opera and it certainly isn´t (Nono didn´t call it so!): it tells no coherent story and it has no staging. In fact none of his so-called operas by others were recognized as such by the author: "Al gran sol carico d´amore" and "Intolleranza" are specifically called "azioni teatrali" by the composer, who forbade the term "opera" to describe them.

            What is "Prometeo", then?  A good many things flabbergast me in it. E.g., its description as "Tragedia dell´ascolto" ("Tragedy of hearing"); the only sense I find in it is that Prometheus´ destiny was a tragic one, and that this series of cantatas (for that´s what they are) gives us snatches of his story in purely sonic terms; but probably Cacciari and Nono had something more abstruse in mind. The score is written for instrumental and vocal soloists, mixed chorus, four instrumental groups, three percussionists, two reciters, plus sound processing and spacialisation in real time. An impressive array indeed.

            The libretto is made up of fragments by Walter Benjamin, Aeschylus ("Prometheus bound"), Euripides ("Alcestis"), Goethe ("Prometheus"), Herodotus, Hesiod, Hölderlin, Pindar, Schönberg and Sophocles ("Oedipus at Colonus"). ...But most of it is so masked by the sound processing that it remains intentionally unintelligible. That´s why there were no supertitles.  

            The nine parts are highly complex, made up of a Prologue, "isole" ("islands"), "stasimi" ("that part of Greek tragedy in which the action stalls whilst the choir comments on what is happening"), interludes and "Tre voci" ( vocal trios). Each one has its own sound combination.

            I believe the only way to appreciate "Prometeo" is the one adopted by the Colón: only the stalls were sold; the music came from the stage and from bunches of musicians or singers spread on two levels of loges so as to give a true surround sound to the audience. Neither a CD nor a DVD can do justice to Nono´s concept.

            The first 40 minutes or so I was very attracted by the most extreme exercise of sound spacialisation I have ever witnessed; the novelty of sensations was very strong and original. However, as time went on I grew less and less interested, and frankly   I was glad it didn´t last the announced two hours and a half. The purely intellectual display is impressive: this is completely thought-out music by a masterful technician. The total effect is abstract, not narrative, and quite free of the nasty politicization of so much of his music (it affects his two "azioni teatrali"). After a while he starts repeating his  effects to a point in which I couldn´t help thinking that if the work would only last an hour it wouldn´t strain the attention of listeners, at least of my type.  Granted, I´m not of nirvanesque bent, and others may tolerate the repetition and stasis better than me. A good deal of the audience seemed to enjoy it (probably many don´t like traditional opera).

            Kudos to all involved. The score requires two conductors due to crisscrossing speeds, and Baldur Brönnimann and Lucas Urdampilleta were fully in command. The 49-member Orquesta Nacional y Juvenil del Bicentenario, the Coro Diapasón Sur (Mariano Moruja), the vocal soloists (especially the two sorely tried sopranos in the highest range, Mercedes García Blesa and Ana Santorelli), the seven instrumental soloists , two of them from the London Sinfonietta (plus the German tuba player who made growling sounds like a native Australian didgeridoo), three percussionists and two low-voiced reciters, all did well. Plus the essential know-how of André Richard in the spacialisation of the whole and the collaboration of the EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR, Freiburg (Germany). Helpful programme notes.  A remarkable logistics problem cleanly solved. The Colón is growing more and more adventurous.

For Buenos Aires Herald

The National Symphony´s erratic course

Longtime readers will scarcely be surprised by the title of this article, for the National Symphony (Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional) is a prime example of state negligence through the decades, the Sisyphus myth incarnate (the orchestra sometimes progresses and then loses what it won). Started in 1948, it had brilliant early years: Rafael Kubelik and Sergiu Celibidache in 1950, and from 1951 to 1955  Conciertos Daniel ran it and great conductors were at the helm: Horenstein with Backhaus and Rubinstein, Erich Kleiber, Georg Solti, Igor Markevich, Malcolm Sargent, Rudolf Kempe, Eduard Van Beinum,  Heitor Villalobos and Paul Kletzki.

Then came the wonderful period led by Juan José Castro, years of fascinating repertoire and great conductors or conductor-composers such as Hermann Scherchen, Ernest Ansermet, Jean Martinon, Carlos Chávez, Willem Van Otterloo and Igor Stravinsky (with the Mozarteum). But at the end of 1960 Castro resigned accusing the stifling bureaucracy: "Kafka must have known us". From then on, the National Symphony never recovered although it had some flashes. You will look in vain for a similar roster of great names in this half century, and the progressive spirit that led to so many important premières also  slackened greatly. Some good points: Witold Rowicki (1961), Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1963), Pablo Casals (1964, with the Mozarteum), Stanislav Wislocki (1967), Charles Dutoit (1968), the première of Penderecki´s "St Luke´s Passion" (1969). Teodoro Fuchs, Simón Blech, Jorge Fontenla did good work over the years.

A conflict paralyzes the Orchestra in 1972, affecting the good plans of Principal Conductor Jacques Bodmer.  1974, Franz-Paul Decker. 1979: Leopold Hager and Hans Wallat. 1986: good programming. 1987-94: very opaque years. But Pedro Calderón, designated Principal Conductor, tackled great projects in the following years with the Asociación Wagneriana: Schönberg´s "Gurre-Lieder", Mahler´s Eighth, the Berlioz Requiem. And Francisco Rettig premièred Messiaen´s "Turangalîla Symphony".  However, after the crisis of 2002 the Orchestra has had poor seasons.

The current administration and the preceding one have both been negative, affecting Calderón´s plans. Some general bad points: a) The wrong idea of having the orchestra playing for free, fact that certainly diminishes its status: no important organism can develop and take its proper  place based on populist plans. b) The negligent and infuriating policy of paying the visiting artists as much as a year after their performances, determining that most of them refuse to come back (Rettig is a case in point). And this also applies to payments of orchestral parts, practice that most European and American editing houses refuse to accept, thus leading to mediocre programming. c) As a consequence, constant changes in the yearly programs: unreliability. d) Plus bad managing: late steps to arrive to an agreement with the Auditorio de Belgrano, hand programmes chaotically handled: incomplete, not enough of them or altogether absent.

The orchestra needs: 1) An autarchy law with much better budget; 2) A subscription series with reasonable prices; 3) A high-speed administrative machine that works according to a decent chronogram and pays in time, d) A permanent hall; this is promised for 2015: the Post (Correo) is being internally rebuilt as a cultural center and will have a big concert hall of about 2.000 seats. The National Symphony has lost technical quality in recent months, perhaps because the players have grown tired of so much mismanagement. But it was for a time our best orchestra. Only with drastic changes can it compete in the future.

I heard two concerts  in the final part of the season. In the first Swiss conductor Emmanuel Siffert made his debut replacing Rettig. He showed good capacity and his versions of two great Impressionists were useful: Ravel´s "Alborada del Gracioso" and Debussy´s "La Mer". The great Dvorák Cello Concerto Op.104 had a splendid soloist in the Bulgarian Stanimir Todorov, who has been very active here in recent years, though he is now first desk of the Montecarlo Philharmonic. A beautifully terse sound, an uncanny intonation and sensitive phrasing were the marks of a master cellist, and he was well accompanied.  From the young Argentine composer Cristian Axt we had the première of "Camino a la Peña, Introducción y malambo", which shows a firm hand and a tasteful modernisation of folk-inspired material.                                                                            Carlos Vieu is one of our best conductors. His programme had as "pièce de résistance" the two Verdi Sacred Pieces written for mixed choir and symphony orchestra: "Stabat Mater" and "Te Deum". Tremendous music from an octogenarian who was still innovating, the music goes from hushed mystery to cataclysmic fortissimi; the ideas are esoteric and searching. The Coro Polifónico Nacional under Darío Marchese was in very good shape, the Orchestra did have some fluffs in horns and trumpets, though Vieu´s interpretations were insightful.                                                                 I was very favorably impressed by José Daniel Robuschi, assistant concertmaster of the Orchestra, as an accurate and strong exponent of Shostakovich´s tough Second Violin Concerto; he is solid and sensitive. Again the brass had some trouble. The concert included two Argentine composers. From Piazzolla in excellent arrangements by José Carli, "Decarísimo" and "Fuga y misterio", the best playing of the Orchestra. And a mediocre mini-cantata, "De folhas novas", world première) by Amanda Guerreño, with the Coro Polifónico Nacional. Pretentious and inflated, I felt it unnecessary in an otherwise attractive programme, the last at the Auditorio de Belgrano, though the orchestra will play several times in localities of the Gran Buenos Aires.              I can only wish them a better, less troubled 2014

For Buenos Aires Herald

Midday Concerts and Chopiniana end their seasons

            The free Mozarteum Midday Concerts, generally on Wednesdays at 1 p.m., have reached the enviable 54^th. Birthday, still providing high quality music for multitudes, in recent years at the Gran Rex. Pro: its great capacity; con: the poor acoustics that iron out brilliance and soften the sound; but at least this is better than excessive resonance, such as the Main Hall of the Facultad de Derecho UBA, another source of seasonal free concerts (in that case on Saturday afternoons).

            The Cuarteto Gianneo is, along with the Petrus and the Buenos Aires, one of our best string quartets. The players: Luis Roggero and Sebastián Masci, violins; Julio Domínguez, viola; and Matías Villafañe, cello. They have a special interest in Argentine composers, witness their name. On this concert they presented the sole String Quartet (1948) by Carlos Guastavino, mislaid for many years and recovered and edited recently by Masci, Tomás Ballicora and Lucio Bruno-Videla; the Cuarteto Gianneo premièred it in 2012. Music in the larger forms wasn´t the strong point of Guastavino, essentially a melodist of refined traditional harmony. This four-movement Quartet is weak in structure but easy on the ear, citing such famous songs of his as "Pueblito, mi pueblo" and "Se equivocó la paloma"; the players transmitted it with high involvement.

            A tough score  completed the programe: Brahms´ First Quartet, Op.51 Nº1, is closely argued, tense, masterful, difficult and long (35´). A very musical traversal from all concerned but a bit lacking in sheer energy. The encore certainly contrasted: Piazzolla´s "La muerte del ángel" in Bragato´s arrangement.

            Although it was a replacement for the originally announced Orquesta Beethoven Academy under Ricardo Sciammarella´s leadership, I was glad to have a chance to hear the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Nacional José de San Martín, new name of the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Libertador San Martín, founded in 1994 by Mario Benzecry following the famous Abreu Venezuelan model. It now has the national subsidy it lacked for so long, hence the new appellation.

            Although I heard it in recent years at the Facultad de Derecho, it was hard to discount the immense distortions of the acoustics; at the Gran Rex the sounds may be slim but they are truer. First we heard the often played surviving Dance from the opera "Huemac" (1916) by Pascual de Rogatis, a pretty good piece from one of our pioneer composers; it was nicely done under the precise conducting of Ezequiel Silberstein, Adjunct Conductor of the Orchestra and a Benzecry disciple.

            And then, the big challenge of Rimsky-Korsakov´s "Scheherazade", this time under Benzecry. The magnificent suite was very carefully conducted and played, with only tiny hesitations that mattered little; the 72-member organism sounded concentrated and serious, with several fine solos, and the climaxes  were encompassed firmly. The score is virtuosic and the San Martín isn´t quite that, but on this showing it marks a considerable improvement (maybe a welcome consequence of the subsidy) and Maestro Benzecry, who has worked so hard to maintain this project alive during almost two decades, is to be commended.

            Benzecry imitated Dudamel and his Bolívar Orchestra: the encore was played with overclothes evoking the Argentine flag (the colorful Venezuelans make quite a show with theirs), although the music was French: Offenbach´s Can-can from "Orpheus in the Underworld".        

            Another case of perseverance is Chopiniana, the yearly  second semester parade of pianists organized by Martha Noguera. The last concerts were offered at the First Floor Hall of the Palacio Paz (Círculo Militar), with rather good acoustics, an improvement on the very resonant Ground Floor Oval Room, beautiful but bad for music. Unfortunately the announced Viennese Manfred Wagner-Artzt cancelled, but the day was saved by a responsible veteran Argentine pianist of vast trajectory: Néstor Zulueta. As often happens with many talented local players, they don´t find enough engagements to make viable a career as concert pianist, although they have the means to do it, and so they become professors and give sporadic concerts. Such is Zulueta´s case, who showed himself techincally and stylistically able to give very adequate accounts of a well-varied and exacting programme: Brahms´ Caprices Op.76 Nos. 1 and 5, Ravel´s "Alborada del Gracioso" (Nº 4 of "Miroirs") and that variegated Schumann marvel, "Carnaval". The encore, more Ravel: "Oiseaux tristes" (Nº 2 of "Miroirs").

            Due to a collision of events, I couldn´t hear Polish pianist Marian Sobula´s recital dedicated to his compatriots (Paderewski, Bielecki, Szymanowski and Chopin). But Noguera herself gave an impressive closing concert, where the 70-year old petite artist showed that age hasn´t diminished her fantastic mechanism and stamina. Chopin in the First Part: the early virtuosic Rondo Op.16 and the Andante spianato and Polonaise brillante Op.22, both played with ease except for minimal hitches in the Polonaise.

            The Second Part was mostly Spanish, and it started with a Manuel de Falla masterpiece: his "Fantasía Baética", an imaginative Andalusian evocation ("Baetica" was the Roman name for it) played with stunning command. Then, a rarity, three agreeable (but no more) pieces by the unknown Ángel Barrios (1882-1964), also Andalusian: "Suite La suerte", "En las cuevas del Darro" (a stream close to Granada´s Alhambra) and "Albaycinera" (on a Granada borough). And then, the spicy "Triana" by Albéniz.

            The dessert in this musical meal proved worth waiting for: a very accurate version in the right tempo of that almost unplayable colorful piece by Balakirev, "Islamey"; few play it because few can; she can.  The encore: Chopin´s First Waltz.

For Buenos Aires Herald